[Cross that bridge when I get there] Post Santa Barbara Trip! Feeling very busy but relaxed. Since I'm (hopefully) almost leaving. I think I can be a bit more open about my job here. I go to these college campuses all across Southern California and work with certain student groups to do their national philanthropy. It's hard work on us because we travel and have to put up with college students, but it also allows us to be apart of the gang again and have a lot of fun (when sometimes I know we're not supposed to) Yes, our 2nd favorites (Mich's first, actually) impressed us today. It's hard to work with college groups because motivation is hard to stir up. You can't really discipline them, because on an organizational standpoint they're truly doing us a favor. At the same time, you know when they're not performing up to par. It's especially hard when you don't see them so often and they have trouble motivating themselves when it comes to their own house activities outside the philanthropy we help them with. But I am proud of our SB boys! They did such a great job today! Here's the deal. Mich and I are always concerned about one thing when we go to these college campuses (especially this campus) Does our buddy buddy status with them effect our work performance? We come to these campuses to work, and yes... we become in charge or their bosses for about a day or two. So your boss knows the words to Your Body by Pretty Ricky and knows a lot about Paul Wall, Mike Jones and says the word nah. It adds to the comfort, but it becomes distracting sometimes because then we become peers instead of a person of authority. With all the fun stuff aside, I'm still there to get my job done. It was a real buzz kill yesterday, because the boys weren't performing up to par. They really sucked yesterday and we let them know it (yesterday and today). We told them, We like you guys, but this performance is unacceptable! We were really pro active about telling them how we felt, only because we see so much potential in them, not just with the work they do with us, but with the overall activities of the group. We told the right people how we felt, and well... they actually came through. I was very surprised. We didn't know what to expect after yesterdays performance, so today blew yesterday out of the water, and they were proud of themselves and we were proud of them. The funny joke with them yesterday was If the performance continues like this... me and Mich aren't coming out anymore. We meant we as in our organization not us as individuals. We did mention that they might decide not to send us as organization representatives because of the performance but we meant it in a cost effective business point of view, you know from an organizational standpoint. Something in that sentence stirred up this really interesting reaction to our statements. The handful of guys who were working their butts off yesterday gave their two cents to the whole club and with a combination of our comments and their comments they actually listened to us and did something about the disaster that had happened the day before. It was really cute because all through out the day they kept asking if what they were doing today would be enough to send me and Mich back for the spring. I thought it was really thoughtful that a bunch of lazy guys were thinking about us and campaigning for us to stay. They were joking around about writing us recommendation letters and even protesting if we didn't come back. We reassured all of them that our office would be pleased with today's results and that they'd expect to see us in the spring for sure. Days like these make me proud of what I do. Not just because of what I'm accomplishing as far as my organization is concerned, but I feel as though these interactions with these college boys is similar to what I'll encounter in my future teaching career (especially if I'm fortunate enough to teach Asian Am sometime in my lifetime). The smallest amount of confidence and faith in someone is just enough to get them motivated to perform up to their potential. Later on in the day I said in my ghetto tone You jerks have the potential to be a really strong house... you proved that today, so don't forget that. I think in some ways inside a lot of their lazy heads, they realized that yes... when they do put 100% into it successful results do occur. Our organization doesn't ask us to take this pro active approach to working with these groups on a personal level. If anything, if our supervisor were to think of an approach to this problem, all the burden would have been on us. Me and Mich know that 1. it has nothing to do with us and 2. it works to show that you care (it also helps that you sincerely do). They actually care about what we think about them, and when they knew they let us down, they didn't want us to feel that way. It's a lot of work trying to be personable yet professional, but it's proved to be successful at most of the campuses we go to. It's nice to have a fan club =) It was also nice to get out of the office and vacation away from the madness. SB boys are funny as hell and they always want to kick it with us for some reason. Although we just left, Mich and I were talking about the Spring and how most likely the Spring drive would probably be the last time we'd ever see all of them. It made us kind of sad. This relationship has taken a year to grow (do you know how hard it is to participate in fraternity boy conversations? lol), Even some of the guys who weren't so buddy buddy with us before, ended up talking up a storm this time around. To see it be done with soon... is kinda sad. It made me think about my future and what's coming up next. The next level is approaching soon... and that's really scary. I guess I'll just have to cross that bridge when I get there.